


give us this day our daily bread

by straddling_the_atmosphere



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Blasphemy, Blood, Crucifixion, Gen, M/M, Prophecy, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stigmata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 18:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15869289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/pseuds/straddling_the_atmosphere
Summary: Tomas has been on the road with Mouse for a month when he starts to wake up with bloody hands. His palms are smooth, rough from work but uninjured, but blood flakes along his fingers and the center of his palm, dried and cracked. The sheets in the motels they stay in are stained red.-set sometime past s2





	give us this day our daily bread

**Author's Note:**

> Posted part of this on tumblr but then extended it by a good 600 words here

Tomas has been on the road with Mouse for a month when he starts to wake up with bloody hands. His palms are smooth, rough from work but uninjured, but blood flakes along his fingers and the center of his palm, dried and cracked. The sheets in the motels they stay in are stained red.

He doesn’t tell Mouse, their stays in each motel shorter and shorter, and when he washes his hands it’s like nothing ever happened. She never notices and he doesn’t let himself wonder if Marcus would have.

He doesn’t dream since leaving Marcus, not even a demon’s version of one, and when he wakes, hands slick with blood, his eyes dark and hollow like a skull’s, he doesn’t wonder how much longer he can do this, how much more Mouse can push him.

“You’re like a thoroughbred,” Mouse had told him once, the two sharing a beer and fries after a particularly brutal exorcism. “I don’t want to break you, but I want to push you to win.”

Race horses are notoriously finicky and short-lived creatures, and often they’re pushed straight into their deaths, but Tomas doesn’t tell her that. He thinks she knows, anyway. Once, Tomas went to Arlington Park with Olivia and her then-boyfriend and he remembered his hands sticky with funnel cake, the horses pawing at the ground, snorting. At the end of the race, he watched one stablehand lead a horse and his jockey away, and the horse had pink-flecked foam at his mouth, long, delicate legs shifting and shying away from other hands.

The ponies in Mexico were sturdier creatures, like Mouse and her scars and the thick muscles on her arms, and he wonders when he became an instrument to be used rather than a creature of practicality. He’s quiet as he washes the french fries down with a swig of beer.

* * *

_You’re the golden boy, aren’t you?_ A demon coos in his head as he holds a girl’s writhing body down, Mouse praying over them.  _The one meant to destroy us. Where’s your old lion, little león? He leave you too?_

Tomas bares his teeth and presses down harder, his voice rising up to join Mouse’s in prayer.

Later, he stares at himself in the mirror, a cut bisecting the line of his cheeks, the yellow of a black eye beginning to heal. When he breathes, it hurts.

That night he dreams for the first time since Marcus left. He walks in a lush, thick forest that gets darker the longer he moves. He can hear leaves crunching under his bare feet, somehow still soft and moist when thorns should be pricking his toes, and his own breathing is harsh and loud. Something darts up ahead, but when he looks around, nothing is there, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end.

“You’ve got yourself in a real mess, haven’t you, love?” Marcus says and Tomas whirls around, eyes wide. He looks just the same, leaning insouciantly against a tree, his hat low over his eyes–Tomas’s heart clenches painfully in his chest. He doesn’t say anything and Marcus’s smile widens as he straightens up, eyes alert and sharp, and he moves forward with that jackal’s gait, same as he always did when he found a secret and wanted to pounce.

“Haven’t told Mouse about the blood, have you? You know partnership only works if none of you have any secrets.” Marcus clicks his tongue disapprovingly and Tomas swallows. “That’s why ours broke, didn’t it?”

Tomas takes a step back and Marcus takes one forward. “You decided to leave,” Tomas finally says, his palms wet.

“You didn’t ask me to stay.”

“That’s not fair,” Tomas says softly. “I wasn’t going to drag you from your peace.”

Marcus snorts, almost fond except for the mean look in his eyes. “You think a man like me can have peace?” He shakes his head mockingly. “It’s too late now, Tomas. For me, and for you.” He drags his eyes down Tomas’s frame in a way that makes Tomas flush. “Should’ve told Mouse about the blood.”

Tomas shifts to step back again, and nearly slips, his feet wet, and when he looks down all he can see is blood, red and streaked along the arch of his foot, gushing from the center. A perfect hole on both of them. Fear crawls its way up Tomas’s spine and he doesn’t want to look at his hands, wet from what he thought was sweat but–

Marcus reaches out and takes one, palm upward, and it’s also streaked crimson, slowly oozing more from the center. His thumb hovers over the wound, as gentle as lovers grasping hands, before he presses down, hard.

Tomas wakes with a gasp, Mouse over him and swearing.

“Fucking  _Christ,_ Tomas, you’re bleeding everywhere,” she says, towels pressed to both his hands.

Tomas rasps out a breath. “My feet too,” he manages and she swears again, more colorful this time, Tomas thinks dizzily, which he didn’t think was even possible as she strips the blanket off of him.

“Stay awake, Tomas,” she says but her voice is fading in and out, and he closes his eyes and gives into the pull of unconsciousness.

* * *

“Back so soon?” Marcus says, sitting on a barrel outside a dilapidated farm house. It reminds Tomas of the places they used to drive by in their truck. “Couldn’t get enough of me, could you?”

“No,” Tomas says truthfully. Whoever this is, it’s not Marcus, but he misses him all the same. “I never could.”

Marcus gives him that lopsided smile, the true one that always makes Tomas thrill. “One could almost think you’re flirting, love.”

Tomas looks at his hands, the tip of his ears going red, and gets distracted by the holes there. They’re clean, as if there was never any blood in the first place, but holes are still there, clear and perfect.

“All you need is a crown of thorns, don’t you?” Marcus murmurs and Tomas looks up, startled. Marcus’s smile has taken on that mocking quality Tomas hates. “Poor Padre Tomas, taking on the weight of the world. You always were the martyr, weren’t you? Letting demons take you, thinking you can stop the devil himself.”

“I don’t–”

Marcus snorts. “Perhaps you are,” he says thoughtfully. “God doesn’t speak to me anymore, so maybe he’s taken a shine to you.” He leans forward and takes Tomas’s hand again, his fingers dry and cool. Tomas shivers as his thumb brushes the wound again, gentle as a kiss. The sky overhead turns grey, thunder rumbling ominously. Tomas can see Marcus’s eyes flash white and he tries to jerk his hand away, but Marcus’s grip tightens, lips curling up. His nails dig into Tomas’s hand so hard he can feel the skin break and Marcus’s eyes glow, luminous and white and pupil-less, too strong and teeth too sharp and–

“They’re not bleeding anymore,” Tomas can hear Mouse say when he awakens. He keeps his eyes closed and his breathing slow, not wanting her to know, his heart still pounding. “They’re still there,  _yes,_ Bennett, I know what it means. I know what stigmata is.”

Tomas’s breath hitches at that and Mouse pauses. He stays still and she resumes talking, but Tomas isn’t listening anymore, running his finger over the hole in his palm. He can see bone, white and bleached, and muscle and tissue and the other side of the sheet, but there’s no more blood. 

 _Tomas,_ a voice whispers, a thought intruded. It sounds like prayer.  _Tomas…_

Tomas curls his fingers into fists, the stark white of his bone gleaming as he listens harder, hope cresting in his chest, rising like the swell of a wave, foam-tipped and turbulent.

_Tomas, wait for me. Trust no one. I’m coming back for you_

* * *

Tomas is in and out for the next few days, waking long enough to manage to get some food down, for Mouse to wipe his hands and feet. He feels supplicant, like el jesucristo himself lain out on the cross, calmly waiting for his last moments before death. The moments he had known were coming ever since Judas had taken him by the face and pressed a hot kiss to his mouth, warm and  _alive_ and betrayed by one he loves.

Did Jesus love Judas with the savage righteousness that Tomas feels for Marcus? Did he watch Judas turn away from him and know that Judas would live to regret the very thing he did? That that regret would tear him asunder, until he threw himself from a building, flush with the money the soldiers had given him, cursed coins, the sight of his love in a crown of thorns, blood dripping into his eyes.

Tomas has always thought of the Bible as a love story more than anything else. Jesus and his love for his disciples, the sheer earthy humanness of them, the base scent from under their arms when one would curl up with him in bed. John, so beloved by Jesus that he slept with his head on his breast, who could smell the virility in the chosen one's body.

Jesus again, and his love for Mary Magdalene, how he took the arches of her feet in his hands and carefully washed them, how his hands must have strayed higher, how she must have laughed, accepted it, loved him. Like they all loved him, all those young disciples, and those young women, loving that young, chosen man. 

Tomas has never faulted himself for the love he has felt. Not in the way he thinks Marcus has. He broke his vows, and for that he feels guilt, but not for loving her, or wanting her or even being with her. 

His dreams mark the time that passes, stuttering and jumping forward, that cagey thing time is, in slumber, especially a fevered one. He can see a nail driven into his hand, sees himself doing that to his own body, mutilating it. Sees the last demon in the girl they didn't save, her scarred hands and face touching his own, cackling and cackling.

 _León pequeñito,_ it coos, and then it shifts, mouth widening, elongating, a face coming out of another face, and Marcus grins at him, all bright teeth and those jackal eyes, holding a hammer, and it swings, swings, towards his hand, towards the nail already half dug into the muscle, and Tomas opens his mouth to scream--

* * *

Tomas awakens. It's light out, a cool breeze flowing in from a half open window. The room is empty, though there's strewn plastic cups and empty takeout containers on the other bed. He climbs out from sweat-damp covers and absently rubs his wrist, going over to the bathroom and rinsing the rancid taste of his mouth out with lukewarm motel faucet water.

"Did you really think we'd let you leave?" Bennett asks, sitting on the empty bed when Tomas comes out of the bathroom, and his heart jumps. "You're our prized possession, Father Tomas." He taps his temple. "Someone is always watching you."

"Where's Marcus?" Tomas asks, a towel still in his hands. Bennett looks strange sitting there, out of place on these crusty beds. Those sharp, knowing eyes on him, a hawk on its way to make a kill.

"He won't come for you," Bennett replies and Tomas's hand tightens on the towel.  _Trust no one,_ he can still hear, and the hair on his arms stand on end.

"You're not him," Tomas says, voice low, and Bennett smiles, slow, and his pupils  _shift_ , black to a sickly carrion yellow, teeth black with rot, and Tomas throws the towel at him, shoving the motel room door open and--

* * *

Tomas opens his eyes. The room smells like cigarettes, and Mouse is asleep on the bed next to his. The moon is shining through the gauzy cheap window curtains and Tomas leans over the side of his bed to retch into a bucket thoughtfully left for him. He pulls his hands out, sees the bandages dotted with blood. Bile rises in his throat and he forces himself to swallow it down. He doesn't think Jesus died as pathetically as this. A merciful death, oh holy one, he thinks-prays wryly. I would prefer not to inconvenience as I go.

He feels tired still, a deep, bone-weary exhaustion, and he ends up drifting off, knowing he's dreaming when he sees a jackal in the flesh, grinning that scavenger's bone-white smile. It paces around him, slow circles, tail swishing end to end, muscles in its hind legs shifting and flexing every time it moves. Its ears flick after a moment and Tomas looks up to see Marcus, or something like Marcus, a shadowed and twisted thing where Marcus has always been full of light. He sees what's in his hand and he laughs, loud in the silence.

"You know," he says. "You never get him right."

The thing wearing Marcus's face raises an eyebrow and Tomas snorts, still chuckling quietly. The crown glints in Marcus's hands. "He is so good, you know. He thinks he isn't, thinks he's too broken and ugly to be loved, but he's so  _good._ He wants to desperately to save every life, to take care of every child he sees."  _To save me,_ he doesn't say, but he knows how many times Marcus looked at him while they were driving, concern blatant in his eyes where it wasn't in his voice. "You're wrong about him."

The thing that is Marcus, that looks like Marcus and wants to be Marcus--the thing grins, wide and unsettling, dark eyes glinting in the shadows, and he lifts the crown, thorns gleaming in the light.

"Oh, little lion cub," the thing that is Marcus says. "We were never trying to get to  _him._ " And he places the crown onto Tomas's head and Tomas screams, pain blinding as the sharp metal and thorns dig into his scalp, hot blood streaming down his face in his eyes, and he's begging, praying,  _anyone,_ _Marcus, please, please please_

 _Wake up, Tomas,_ says a cool, soft voice, gentle scarred hands on his face.  _Wake up for me,_ and Tomas opens his eyes, stinging against the black blood sticking on his skin, dripping into the crease of his eyelid, pain screaming inside of him, but he pushes passed that, passed the jackal panting for its next meal, passed the thing in the wrong face, into the darkness, into light.

And Tomas wakes up. 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think!
> 
> check me out @ tomasortega on tumblr


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